Dame Maggie Smith obituary: A piercing presence on stage and screen

Two years later she was the cash-strapped Countess of Trentham in Gosford Park, Robert Altman’s take on the English country house murder.

Her performance was a delight, with a veneer of snobbery from which would emerge the masterly put down, particularly in the case of Mr Novello’s failed movie.

It was a role that she arguably reprised in all but name when she was cast in ITV drama, Downton Abbey. The name of her character may have changed to the Dowager Countess of Grantham but the performance was similar in essence.

“It’s true I don’t tolerate fools, but then they don’t tolerate me, so I am spiky,” she once said. “Maybe that’s why I’m quite good at playing spiky elderly ladies.”

She remained with the Downton Abbey cast until 2015 when the series finally came to an end, reprising the role for two films in 2019 and 2022.

In 2007, while filming Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was given the all-clear after two years of treatment.

Despite being left feeling weak after her illness, she went on to star in the final Harry Potter film and received a Bafta nomination for her role in the 2012 film, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

In 2015 she gave a moving performance in the film, The Lady in the Van, based on the true tale of Mary Shepherd, an elderly woman who lived in a dilapidated van on the writer Alan Bennett’s driveway in London for 15 years.

She had previously appeared in the stage version of the story, for which she won an Olivier for Best Actress, and a 2009 BBC Radio 4 adaptation of Bennett’s play.

Dame Maggie gave few interviews but she was once asked to define the appeal of acting. “I like the ephemeral thing about theatre, every performance is like a ghost – it’s there and then it’s gone.”